Arjun vows to scrape ‘saffron’ off textbooks

HRD Minister Arjun Singh has returned to obeying the Left’s diktats on education after taking off on his own and agreeing to 50 per cen...

HRD Minister Arjun Singh has returned to obeying the Left’s diktats on education after taking off on his own and agreeing to 50 per cent reservation for Muslims in Aligarh Muslim University —- a decision the CPI(M) disagreed with.

Last week, the HRD Ministry ensured that Surjeet’s objections to the National Institute of Open Schooling which continue to teach ‘‘saffron’’ reading material will be looked into without delay.

As demanded by the former CPI(M) general secretary in the article, the ministry has asked NIOS authorities to remove the booklets on Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Shyama Prasad Mookerjee from its stores and also remove a couple of pages of ‘‘pro-RSS’’ material that had been included in the social science book for Class X.

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Surjeet had written in an article entitled ‘‘Pay Greater Attention to Combating Saffronization’’ in the CPI(M) mouthpiece, ‘‘People’s Democracy’’ on May 1 that the NIOS was preaching RSS propaganda and those propaganda had not been removed from the course material.

On May 17, the ministry sent a letter to the NIOS director M Panth asking him to explain why the NIOS had included books like Bharatiya Sanskriti Ke Poshak, Deen Dayal Upadhyay (Deen Dayal Upadhyay, a patron of Indian Culture) and Ek Nirbheek Evam Sachhe Deshbhakt, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (A fearless and True Patriot, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee). The NIOS authorities replied that they had ordered a complete review of the syllabus last year in December and it was taking time. Besides, they had ordered the removal of these books in February and the stores would be free of them in some time.

Questions had been raised by Sahmat in a letter he had sent how M. Panth was still heading the organisation, having been appointed by former HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi. Panth had said these questions were fundamental and he would take some time in responding to them.

Interestingly what the ministry has also done is that it has removed passages from pages 305 and 306 of the book, Social Science-I, which dealt with praise of the Hindu Mahasabha’s role in the freedom struggle. The Left’s objection was to a paragraph which lauded the RSS and said, ‘‘As a protest to extreme effort and dividing the Indian society a movement for greater organization (sangathan) was started to serve the nation… This organization is, today, making great contributions to India’s resurgence through its social wings like Vidya Bharati and Seva Bharati.’’

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